


That Weird Universe Where Coco is Totally Into Me

by Clocksmith



Category: Crash Bandicoot (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Interdimensional Travel, Other!Coco, Other!Nina, Pancakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29786454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocksmith/pseuds/Clocksmith
Summary: This wasn't the first time that Nina had been to another universe, but it was the first one she'd been to where she had the opportunity to meet another version of herself.Sadly, it was also the version of Nina that had married Coco Bandicoot.
Relationships: Coco Bandicoot & Nina Cortex, Coco Bandicoot/Nina Cortex
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A commission for jacobgross777 on fiverr! Though I have to admit I never pass up the chance to write Coco and Nina :3

Amazing. Glorious.

Intuitive.

_Ingenious._

All of those words held one simple, uniting factor; they described Nina Cortex perfectly.

She admired her bracelet, imperfect and unrefined. Prototypical to the extreme with sharp edges and screws that weren’t all the right size. “I’m going to dominate this stupid island.”

She was not humble. She couldn’t lay claim to that word… unless she needed something. Then she would be any word that anyone in power wanted her to be.

She was not humble.

“I am so fucking perfect.”

But she didn’t give a shit. She gave a shit about her inventions and she was about to kick the ass of every invention that every scientist in her social wasteland dared to claim as something amazing. Or glorious.

Or intuitive or ingenious because they were definitely not.

Not now that Nina was clawing her way in.

Interdimensional travel was not a hard concept to grasp. Her uncle had discovered it by accident and relegated the only tech in his lab capable of harnessing it as a centrepiece to an otherwise dismal laboratory. He treated the Psychetron like some glorified chandelier that he went to when he needed something pretty to play with.

He had the ability to shift through dimensions – to shift his _whole fucking lab_ through to q different dimension and he… what? Used it once to find his pet parrots and then to strand himself inside Crash’s brain for a few weeks?

He was a moron. He had such a wide range of machines and technologies under his grasp and he did absolutely nothing with them.

His scope was small, at least when it came to how his machines could be used. Why not teleport his lab to a different dimension, rebuild and bring it back? Or install the damned thing into an airship and use that as his primary mode of transport, transferring from one dimension to another and pillaging anything that took his fancy?

He didn’t even use it against Crash. He’d failed once and abandoned it.

Moron.

A thousand times, a moron.

Nina was _not_ a moron, however. And she knew useful tech when she saw it.

Now however, it was outdated. The Quantum Masks were the new bullies on the block and no amount of tinkering was going to change the fact that they had ultimate control over almost every aspect of time and space.

Almost. If you smash a window to get into someone’s house, they’re going to notice. But what if you took the windows off their hinges and replaced them after the deed was done?

What if you drilled a hole into the wall and sent something small to spy on the inside?

Problems only became a problem when someone noticed them.

Her bracelet was perfect in that regard. It teleported you from one point in space to the exact same point in space… whilst shifting you one dimension to the left. Or the right, if she was feeling spicy about it. Like slipping through a curtain that was too heavy too even hint that you’d moved it at all.

This wasn’t some station-sized behemoth of a machine, intent on ripping the fabric of reality apart. She wasn’t Tropy. Or… Tropy.

Both Tropys were morons.

Nina Hadn’t been so blasé as to just announce her nefarious scheme. She hadn’t built a big sign that said ‘I’M BUILDING A THING AND THIS IS EXACTLY HOW IT’S GOING TO KILL YOU EVENTUALLY HAHAHA FUCK YOU’ to advertise her bracelet to any good guy looking for a quest to kill.

… Well, not after her efforts with mojo and mechs went downhill quicker than she would have liked. Though she supposed a giant robot hardly offered much room to be sneaky without a nice, empty volcano base to hide it.

“Subterfuge. That’s my thing now.”

Sneaky.

Quick.

_Sharp._

More things that applied to Nina, and if she was going to master dimensional travel on a personal scale, she wasn’t going to go big and announce it to the masks. She was a sneaky little bitch and she was going finish her work before they knew what was happening.

That was always the problem with _male_ scientists. It was all just a stupid dick measuring contest.

They could suck Nina’s nuts. She was going to pull the islands from under them and they would deserve it.

She snapped the bracelet on, the metal clasping around her gauntlet until it aligned with the curves she designed into her new mechanical hands. The black bangle was on-brand, even if the jagged edges (and that one green screw) went against the sleekness in everything else it exuded.

… Actually it felt tacky, still this unfinished. But there was no point making it pretty if it didn’t actually work.

“Oh, it’s going to work.” It was going to work so fucking hard.

“It’s really not.”

Nina recognised the voice. It would be stupid not to, after knowing Coco Bandicoot for absolutely _years_.

But still, Nina was a human and humans had evolved to work on instinct. Her head tilted up to locate the source of the sound.

As hard as it was to admit, that was her first mistake.

The second was allowing Coco to actively kick her in the face. The third would have been to sit on the floor like a little loser and take it, but Nina wasn’t even going to begin giving Coco the satisfaction.

Nina was patient.

She was willing to take a deep breath and examine her problems from afar before dealing with them.

She growled through gritted teeth and volleyed out a hand from her wrist.

Her bulky fingers grazed the denim hem at Coco’s ankles as the little bandicoot bounded back into the air. “I. Am. Conducting a _PEACEFUL EXPERIMENT!_ ” Before she clamped her hand, pulled the bastard back and sent it out again. Right into the base of Coco’s taught stomach.

Coco rolled back with the motion, flipping once not-so-elegantly in air before bending to the knew when she found her ground. “So peaceful you need to scream about it?”

“MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS!”

“When you’re messing around with Tropy’s old toys then you _are_ my business!”

So what if she’d cannibalised Tropy’s old machines? He wasn’t doing anything with them. And with the masks – _every_ magical mask keeping an eye on him, he wasn’t going to try anything with what was left of his stupid rift generator anytime soon.

And who cared if Nina had _borrowed_ her uncle’s glorified chandelier? He was wasting potential that Nina could make into something infinitely better. And he’d thrown it in storage when he’d moved out, just to spite her.

Evil tradition, but a pain in the ass, regardless.

The only thing eviller than stealing someone else’s work was stealing it, and then lying about designing it yourself. She’d learned that quickly in her evil ethics class.

Screw her uncle and screw Tropy (and Tropy). If they were too stupid to take over a single dimension, any dimension when they had the chance, she was using their miserable machines to do something for herself. And Coco Bandicoot was not ruining that for her.

“Why are you even here? This is _my_ lab.”

“This is your uncle’s _old_ lab.” Coco’s breathing was heavy as she stood up, cracking her shoulder. “You’ve been in here for, like, six days. I knew you were up to something.”

“I have not been in here for ‘ _like, totally six days, oh my gosh’,”_ she spat, voice high and demeaning. “I’ve been busy.”

“For six days.”

Screw Coco Bandicoot, while Nina was at it. “Not that you’d know what hard work is. What have you been up to, huh? Playing video games on a rotten little couch and scratching your ass?”

Coco had the gall to look offended. “I am _allowed_ to play video games. I saved the multiverse.”

“Your brother saved the multiverse,” Nina cooed. “ _Maybe_ Dingodile.”

“What about Tawna?”

Nina had forgotten she’d even existed, if she was being honest. Both of them. “Oh, yeah. That’s another name on the list before you.”

“I was at ground zero from day one.”

“And yet you still smell like a number two.”

“Says the loner who never has a player two to play games with.”

“I don’t _need_ friends to play videogames with. I prefer quality gameplay with a rich narrative!”

Nina lowered both her fists, clenching them against her side. She’d been doing something _important_. But as it often did, work never seemed quite as important as putting Coco Bandicoot in her place _because that was what she deserved_.

Work could always come later. “I’m gonna kick your furry ass.”

“What, like I kicked you in the face?”

Nina ignored the dulling pain in her cheek. “You got _one_ lucky shot.”

“I seem to get a lot of lucky shots with you, Cortex!”

“Bite me, Bandicoot!”

It was the subtle insults that worked best, really. Crash didn’t seem to care about his heritage as a rat that her uncle had found clawing its way through excrement in the jungle.

Coco Bandicoot, not so much. That made implying she was still an animal so much more fun than it should have been.

“You’re just looking for a fight at this point!”

“You started it!”

Nina’s hands suddenly felt heavy, like they had only just begun to exist again. And suddenly her bracelet was important to her again, too.

“And I’m ending it,” Nina finished.

She pressed the side of her bracelet, rotating it around her wrist until it clicked neatly into place. The systems in her hands activated the matrix layered inside and it suddenly felt like everything was finally going her way.

If her hair hadn’t be slicked down, she would have flipped it all back over her shoulder. _Triumphant._ “Do what you want. I have places to be.” Other places.

One more click and one more button, and she was gone.

… Or not? She pressed the button again.

Nina waited for the shift (where the fuck was the shift?) but nothing came. Not after one second, or two.

At three, she pressed the bracelet _again._

At four, Coco was practically _on_ all fours, pushing up from the ground and ready to pounce Nina against the metal floor.

Five. “Shit!” she hissed. “Come on, _come on!_ ” Six.

One more heavy step and Coco leapt, and the seconds felt longer.

The moment felt longer, like the world was slow and Nina was being forced to watch in _negative time how her life was going to end._

When seven finally came around, Coco’s hands – her _dirty claws_ were on Nina’s shoulders and her back was pinned d against the grated floor of her lab. Because of course. She had thought her uncle an idiot for putting down carpet.

She really wished she’d kept the carpet.

And straddled above her was Coco Bandicoot, her face sneered… and triumphant. “Ha! What happened to ‘it’s–”

For a moment.

There was a gentle hum in the room, through the lab. Like something large growing frustrated at something small entering its den. Like old, mystical machines coming to life.

Nina’s bracelet felt hot against her stump.

“– ‘going to work?” Coco squeaked.

There was a painful _gulp_ of space as Nina felt herself swallowed by reality. Like everything was a thick liquid spreading over her body, chemical makeup and solidity be damned.

She was freezing warm and burning cold. The fur of Coco was all over her and through her and _inside her_. She felt everything and nothing for a single moment and as much as she should have found it disturbingly painful, she could only see it as information she hadn’t had before.

Was this what the universe felt like? A moist mouth trying to swallow you whole.

Whatever the universe was, it didn’t like Nina all that much, it seemed. If the moment had even been a moment at all, it was over. And she was spat out onto the floor of her lab without fanfare or…

Well, _anything._

Nina was a chewed piece of gum spat onto the floor. Coco too; far more appropriately. Onto… linoleum. Clean linoleum, neatly separate from the rest of the lab’s grated floor where work was less important.

And just across from Nina was a young woman, stock still at a lab bench.

A woman that was staring right at her

A woman with sickly pale skin.

And big buckteeth.


	2. Chapter 2

Nina Cortex was not a moron.

Nina Cortex refused to take even one solitary step into the vast realm of _stupid_ that insisted on clinging to every aspect of her daily life.

Not.

One.

_Step._

She knew who she was looking at. She knew herself when she saw it. Or she knew when to recognize some aspect of her being when it was presented to her, at any rate. It was kind of required when you travelled as well as her family did.

You had to recognise your past, present and future. As well as every possibility that could crawl out from in-between. You needed to know who you were so that you could recognise anyone you _could have been or could ever be_.

Someone with that exact same sense of recognition was staring back at her.

She finally turned away from her table and stood in front of them, arms crossed, hidden pistons pumping out from her wrists as hydraulic hands set into place under a pristine lab coat

The joints hissed in frustration, joined by a single click of the woman’s tongue behind bucked teeth. “Honey, undo whatever shit you just did.”

Then a muffled noise. “Why?”

The woman smiled. Only just. “Because it’s done something!”

The woman–

There was no point calling her ‘the woman’, was there? Nina didn’t see a point when she knew that her own name was mixed up in there somewhere.

Nina-Something-Something-Cortex. Maybe preceded by doctor or professor and other silly titles that came with age and prestige.

Assuming the broad _had_ prestige. Nina couldn’t count on every possible version of herself being productive and impressive or successful.

This Other Nina tapped a thick heeled boot against the floor, impatient as she continued to glare at the two girls that now happened to exist on the floor of her laboratory. Nina knew she was impatient, because she would be, too. Especially if some little upstart and a furry mutant dropped into her lap unannounced.

“I have _not_ done something!” the other voice called back, clearer and…

Nina recognised that one as well.

“Well, I’m _looking_ at _something_ right now, and it wasn’t my fault.”

“It could have been your fault.”

“I’m working with neurotoxins!”

There was a pause… before the voice returned with, “Does the something that happened _not_ have anything to do with deadly neurotoxins?”

“I does not.”

“Do I even want to see what you’re looking at?”

The Other Nina smiled… only just. Enough for the edge of her lip to quirk up and implicate that an emotion was indeed taking place.

“Pretty sure you do.”

There was a groan, and a sigh of defeat. Then the sounds of heavy metal on metal before padded footsteps announced that, yes, this other voice did in fact want to see what was going on.

That was Nina’s cue to shove Coco Bandicoot away and push up onto her feet. Except, it ended up far easier that it should have been.

Coco flopped limply off Nina’s back, quite as hit slumped onto the floor.

… Shit.

Something slithered through the back of Nina’s head. Something… hazy. Something unpleasant and black that she didn’t like the feel of against the psyche.

She lowered her wrist, just close enough for it to rest in front of Coco’s lip.

Faint hushed breathes hit her skin. Warm.

Alive.

The haze vanished and Nina exhaled, glad the feeling was gone. All the while, Other Nina watch, let it happen.

Nina growled into herself as she got shakily to her own feet.

Easier said than done, after travelling through time. Space.

Both.

_Whatever._

The masks made travelling between _dimensions_ seem like child’s play. _All of them._ Even Uka Uka and his goody-goody brother. They could casually rupture the fabric of space and time to the point that it barely held any sway over them at all. If they so wanted, the Quantum Masks themselves could have broken down and rewritten reality a thousand times over and no one would be any the wiser.

… Or maybe they _had_ thought about, and they simply had no desire to do so. Typical good guys.

Her little bangle was rather nasty by comparison then, wasn’t it? Dragging you along timeliness and dimensions and realities until it hit a big enough snag to catch onto. And then it dumped into whatever space it happened to find.

Cheap.

Nasty, again.

All that said, it could have even been called a valiant first attempt, had Coco not been there to point out all the potential flaws that it had. One of many being motion sickness. Time sickness?

A sick that spun around inside your head as it continued to exist, not quite being in one place at one time, your perceptions still trying to get to grips that everything was now different.

She would need to fix that. A bracelet was so much more portable than a space station, or even something as stereotypically cliché as a time machine, but an enclosed space offered better protection.

All things to note for next time. Especially if it also meant Nina could end up like Coco on the other side.

The urge to vomit kept itself in check long enough for Nina to stand for longer than a few seconds and confirming that, yes, she stable enough to get on with her life. That was also long enough for the second voice to confirm a source.

“Unless your _something_ is a magical rock monster that’s trained to dance, then it has nothing to do with my…” she said, gait slowing. “My experiment…”

Then stopping by the Other Nina’s side.

A bandicoot. A _new_ bandicoot.

“Oh my God,” she said.

“Told you it was worth your while.”

“Oh my God,” this… _Other Coco_ repeated. “Nina,” she squealed, frantically shaking at the other woman’s upper arm. “Nina, look at them! It’s them!”

The giddy smile on her face was entirely too familiar to Nina, and that was perhaps part in why it sat so uncomfortably in her stomach. This creature was taller – taller than this Other Her – and felt natural wearing it. She was not gangly, or stringy. She was decked in casual dress, with tight sleeves and fitting jeans to keep potentially stray cloth to a minimum.

Her hair was cut short, all curls and uncombed. A pencil and… something that could have been a tool poking out from the tangles.

And a little bow at the front to keep anything that remained in its place.

“Look at them!”

Other Nina made no effort to move away, or free herself from the bandicoot’s grasp. She was… still. Perfectly calm with the encounter. Comfortable, even.

Nina wasn’t sure that she liked that.

“I see them.”

“It’s us!”

And then she _smiled._ Not a smirk, or something sneaky or cruel or mean or any of the other things Nina has seen scrawled over her own face in the mirror. This was something warm. It was natural.

Unnaturally natural. Nina did not just _smile_ the way this Other Nina was smiling.

Nina didn’t smile for Coco Bandicoot the way Other Nina was smiling. She didn’t smile for anyone like that.

But then the moment was gone, and Nina found herself as the topic of interest once more. She didn’t like that, either.

“What are you staring at?” she spat.

The reaction was… less than desired. Other Nina blankly stared back, as if to say, _“Really?”_

Other Coco let out an unapologetic squee of pure fangirl glee.

“That’s totally you,” she said. “That used to be you!”

Other Nina made a face that Nina almost recognised as _disgusted._ Or frustrated. They both came just as easily when you identified as evil.

Whatever it was, Nina didn’t like it. She combed back at her tight hair with her fingers, brushing locks that weren’t there in a vague attempt to regain some semblance of her usual composure.

This was an unexpected situation. Encountering yourself at some point in your might-have-bee past or potential future usually was. Assuming they had broken the dimensional barrier, it was likely that these were different creatures altogether. A Nina and Coco that never were or wouldn’t be. Could’ve-Beens and Maybe-Babies drifting outside the prime dimension.

Whatever they were, Nina decided that she’d rather spend her time doing something more meaningful that looking into anything that involved Coco Bandicoot, let alone two of them.

Even if there were technically two of Nina to bear the brunt of the struggle.

“They’re not us,” Other Nina said, calmly, as she gave Coco a strange look.

She approached Nina simply walking out of Other Coco’s grasp and wandering over to Nina’s Coco. She picked the little bandicoot up, slipping one sleep prosthetic ender her knees as the other cradled her back.

“Well, yeah. Not _us_ us,” Other Coco agreed. “ _I_ don’t remember this.”

“Oh! Yeah. Me neither.”

“But they’re pretty similar.” Then she eyed Nina. “We’re maybe-babies.”

That…

That’s was almost what Nina had been thinking.

Other Coco’s lips pursed. “Ooh, true. We could be the maybe-babies.”

But Nina didn’t like people stealing her idea. She had to be right.

She had to be the one with the advantage. “You are not maybe-babies. You don’t act anything like me.” _Like us._

Other Coco seemed closer to an approximation of who Coco Bandicoot might one day be… barely. Taller, a more refined dress sense. Hair short and styled into something that was far less likely to get in the way of whatever ‘work’ she was apparently doing in this little private laboratory.

A lab which Other Nina was walking further into, Coco cradled in her arms. Nina had to ask.

She had to. “And where are you taking her?”

“To a bed, dumbass.”

The answer came so quickly, compared to any of the plebians Nina ever found herself arguing with that, for a single moment, she was unsure how to proceed. Against this _thing_ that spoke back to her without caring so much as a single shit about what the reaction would be.

But Nina was good with comebacks. “Yeah, because that’s not creepy.”

Other Coco crossed her arms. Despite her jubilant screeching from before, her eyes went dark as she glared Nina down. “As creepy as you bringing an unconscious Coco from your own dimension?”

“She was _not_ unconscious when we left.”

“And you let her travel unprotected because…?”

“I didn’t _want_ to bring her. She grabbed onto me!”

Nina was not going to argue over the morality of an unconscious Coco Bandicoot with someone who was also very much Coco Bandicoot.

“And you decided to jump anyway?”

Not that it had been intentional, but, “Of course, I did! I’m not stopping an experiment because Coco Bandicoot tries grabbing onto my arm.”

“She could have died.”

“I repeat; I am _not_ stopping an experiment just because _Coco Bandicoot_ grabs onto my arm.”

There should have been something else after that, Nina was sure. Every word she chose was like a plan; formulaic. Just the right word to hit just the right place. Or the wrong place.

The worst place, for the recipient.

She’d studied for years at _two school_ devoted to the studies of evil. You did not graduate with several degrees in evil to not utilise them at every moment of everyday. Evil linguistics and advanced bullying were especially useful in that regard.

She was able to stab at just the right spot to make someone lose their cool.

This Other Coco just… snorted, choking back an ugly laugh. “We’re definitely your maybe-babies.”

Nina snarled. “ _No_ , you aren’t–”

“Nina!” Other Coco called, leaning her towards the hall that Coco was being carried down by her captor. “She’s pulling that face you always do.”

Part of Nina – an entirely too small part that should not have been given as a big a soapbox as it had – felt like she should care where this Other Her was taking Coco. Wanted to know what vile acts were going to happen in this lab that Nina could just as easily do so herself.

Other Nina called back, just out of sight. “Which face?”

“The one where you think you’re scary.”

The heavy footsteps carrying Coco down the hall stopped. “I _am_ scary when I make that face.”

Other Coco replied airily. “You definitely are, Sweetie.”

The steps continued, if only after a moment of contemplation. Then Other Coco whispered, “She’s not.” A moment passed. “You’re not.” Then another. “Both of you suck at being scary.”

Nina wasn’t taking this. She would be better leaving.

And she totally would have.

But she didn’t need to look mater her bracelet to know that the recharge period was still very much in session. There was little point creating a custom battery pack for a protype, not when she could have it recharge using background energy from the new universe itself. Enough to work out how to safely make the trip back.

And, you know, have enough power to actually do it safely. It also offered less of a chance that the fucking thing would blow up in her face. Literally.

One recharge, and she could be back home. She could erase the destination for this reality and never have to look back.

She could leave Coco here. Leave her with the _Other Nina_ and _Other Coco_ and know that her archenemies life would be all the more miserable for it. Nina would never have to deal with Coco again and the bandicoots would be one nuisance down, with only two to go.

She could leave and it would literally solve all of her problems.

She _could_ do that…

“You, uh… okay there?” Other Coco said, bending over to match eyelevel. “That’s your conflicted face.”

Nina’s gnawed at her top lip in frustration. “I don’t _have_ a conflicted face.”

“I’ve known you for years.”

“ _No_ , you haven’t.”

“I know your conflicted face. And you do realise your Coco does too, right?”

Okay, that was where she was definitely wrong. “Coco knows absolutely nothing about me, I assure you. I keep a safe distance.”

“I mean, fair? But you have a very readable face.”

Why did she keep saying that? “… No, I don’t.”

“You wear eyeliner and black lipstick. It’s hard _not_ to read what you’re thinking.”

She was still wrong. Not hard to believe, given that she was also some aspect of Coco Bandicoot. Some lifetime, or maybe–

No maybes, babies attached or otherwise. Because if Other Coco was a maybe, that implied Other Nina was a maybe and neither sat well inside Nina’s stomach.

Coco did that to her, in any given situation. She made things chaotic and _good_ and all the things that doing her evil duty wasn’t. It made things awkward, and pointlessly frustrating.

That seemed to be the case for all Coco’s it seemed.

She could leave.

She could still get up and leave when the time came. But…

She wouldn’t have learned anything. Right? There was no point arriving in this universe without gaining the information it had to offer.

There was a second Nina Cortex. There was valuable data to be shared there. Maybe even something that could be exploited to get information on this Other Coco.

Other Coco seemed to think she’d started out as Prime Coco, didn’t she? There could be valuable blackmail material in there, somewhere. In the back of her mind, ready to let slip and ruin the present for Nina’s Coco.

… Either way, leaving felt wrong. Or pointless. Or stupid.

Or… something.

Something that went against the dark teachings in Nina’s brain. So, she ignored Other Coco, stroking her tongue over her buck teeth, and marching her way down the almost-familiar hall that Other Nina had ventured.

If she was going to be stuck with two Cocos, she would rather spend it with another Nina as well.


	3. Chapter 3

Nina almost recognised the halls. Like visiting a friend who lived next door in a conjoined building, with the same house plan but radically different furniture and decoration. Not that Nina had neighbours.

Or friends.

But the basic idea remained. This was a home built from the shape of her own. The dimensions and turns of the halls were instinctive. She knew where each corner led, where each hall ended.

She did not know the content of the rooms they led to. She did not know the colours that painted the walls or the tables that she passed. The wear of age was obvious on so many items, but not in others. New mixed with the old as outside forces infested this space that felt safe that morning– _feels_ safe.

Like that same shitty neighbour coming into your house and redecorating it while you were away.

But shapes were important, and the dimensions of a building were hard to change without largescale reconstruction. The rooms fit for a purpose remained as such, because how else would you move them? You worked _around_ those rooms. You made exceptions for them.

Passing a boiler room emphasised as much. A new door to an old room that remained firmly in place. Just as the torture equipment store next door should have been.

Instead, Other Nina offered a shake of her head. “Spare bedroom,” she said, without even turning back to face Nina in the slightest.

 _Tch._ Spare bedroom.

Spare bedroom…

Nina didn’t need a _spare_ bedroom. She had a bedroom. She had _one_ bedroom, and at no point in her life did she ever assume she would need more than one bed in her home for people other than herself, let alone a whole room for it.

She slept in her room. If anyone else wanted to sleep in her home that badly, there was the three dungeons, the interrogation room in the attic or the floor.

_End of discussion._

She wasn’t like her uncle, with _minions_ and bumbling scientists who couldn’t afford to live on their own. She was a one woman show. She was a _genius._

She needed the space for all of her stuff.

As Other Nina dipped into the spare room, Coco cradled in her arms, Nina decided that her doppelganger didn’t give much of a shit about what she thought. Nina knew that she wouldn’t if the situation was reversed.

Her feet made to follow… until they didn’t. It felt naturally to follow on behind herself, to see where her Coco was being taken. But then she realised how stupid that sounded and set her heavy heels back onto the plush carpet.

Carpet.

_Plush._

Why even bother replacing a carpet in the hall? And with anything as prissy sounding as _plush_ carpeting. It wasn’t even purple, or black.

Maroon was only a step below in the evil colour wheel, but she couldn’t deny the idea that such a step had been taken unnerved her. Why break from the tried and tested formula?

“Sooooo…” Other Coco broke in, suddenly peeking her head down low by Nina’s shoulder, wandering up from behind. “Where are you guys?”

Nina tried her best not to flinch. She hadn’t heard her sneaking up the hall. “We’re in your lab,” she replied, dryly. “Or Nina’s lab.” _My lab._ “Take your pick.”

“Funny. I meant relationship wise.”

Nina swirled her tongue over her teeth again, briefly accepting the slight pain as she pushed a little too hard. She was used to physical pain. “We try to kill each other.”

“Not friends, then?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe-friends?”

Nina eyed Other Coco dangerously. “I am not _any_ type of friend with Coco Bandicoot.”

She pinched her fingers together. “Little teeny baby friends?”

“Not. Friends. Not best friends, not maybe-friends. Not acquaintances or _buddies_ or whatever else you’re getting into your head. We are enemies.”

“Enemies?” Other Coco asked.

Nina smiled cruelly. “ _Archenemies_.”

“Not friends at all, then?”

“No.”

“No deep relationship?”

“ _Definitely. Not_.”

“But she means enough to you that you’ve labelled her as your archenemy.”

What was with the twenty-thousand questions? “Coco Bandicoot means nothing to me.”

“You just said she was your archenemy.”

“Because I _hate_ her.”

The bandicoot cruelly smiled, this time. “So, she does mean something?”

You couldn’t argue with idiocy. Nothing you said made a difference, because their mind was already made up regardless of the facts. New information, new discoveries?

It meant nothing, especially to the likes of Coco Bandicoot.

“I’m done with this… _talk_ ,” Nina said, waving her hands. “Whatever this is. I don’t need to argue with you.”

“You don’t _need_ to, sure,” Other Coco offered, “But–”

“Talk. _Over_ ,” Nina insisted, deciding that, yes, it was a better idea to follow Other Nina into the so-called spare room.

Anything would better than getting stuck with a new Coco Bandicoot. But even that was taken from her.

Other Nina emerged from behind the door, sighing as she closed it behind her. She stretched an arm upward, tightening the elbow until the muscles stretched taught before bringing it down again.

Her eyes fell back on Nina, then other Coco. “Getting along with the ex?”

“Sadly,” Other Coco replied. “I forgot how much of a goober you used to be.”

Uh, rude much?

“How do you think I feel? At least you got a break every once in a while. I had it full time.”

And illogical. “You’re not me,” Nina stated.

“But I am, though,” Other Nina said offhandedly, turning her attention to a flat terminal at the wall. She tapped at it, waiting patiently as it pushed out and presented to her in full.

It was a sleek thing, advanced in its design but equally as aged. Dust clung to the innermost corners and dim lights overhead caught the scratches layered over the glass of the screen.

One of Other Nina’s fingers tapped harshly against the glass before a voice came clearly from within. “How may I help you, today?”

“Scan the guest in room three at even intervals,” she replied casually. “Alert us if conditions change.”

Us. Not just Nina. Or Other Nina, as it were.

Alert _us._

“Affirmative.”

“Sweet,” Other Nina finished, tapping something hidden by the glare of the lights before the terminal went inert, pulling itself back into the wall. “Good deed for the week, complete.”

It remained as a permanent fixture in the hallway, only hiding away enough to become innocuous to the untrained eye. If she had bothered to look, Nina supposed she’d find several of them littered throughout the lab.

“Pretty sure you could manage at least a few more,” Other Coco said. “It’s only Tuesday.”

Other Nina smiled. “No promises.” Before turning her attention to Nina. “You’re still conscious, I see.”

“Duh. I’m not going to knock myself out with my own machines.” A machine that still seemed as Nina really felt, but she wasn’t going to give these people the satisfaction. “Believe me, I’m gone the moment this thing reaches cooldown.”

Other Nina leaned down, hands resting on her thighs and looking to Nina as any aunt might their precious little niece. “Aww, so broody.” She turned to Other Coco. “Was I always this broody?”

Her answer was prompt. “Yes. Like… a _billion_ times, yes.”

“I seem to remember you calling me cute.”

“You’re obviously mistaken.”

“I seem to remember waking up to breakfast in bed this morning.”

Breakfast in–!

Other Coco smiled, but her tone remained unchanged. “Obviously mistaken. Doesn’t sound like something I would do for you at all.”

“Aww.” Other Nina sighed. “I enjoyed my breakfast.”

“Good. Because it probably never happened.”

Other Nina snorted. “Because you totally hate me, right?”

“Of course.”

Like so many separate sticky notes on a devious board of scavenged evidence, strings of thought and testimony wove together into something that Nina could almost consider a cohesive whole.

The cohesive whole made Nina want to claw her own eyes out.

But she was a scientist, and scientists confronted theories when they challenged the norm. You didn’t ignore evidence or cast it aside because you didn’t like the result.

“Please…” Nina never said please. “ _Please_ tell me that you aren’t dating.”

You merely bargained with the evidence until you discovered a way to make your own evidence more evident. Or at least, buy enough time to come up with a suitable countertheory of your own. Maybe even using magic or a different kind of science, just to get a quick advantage.

Different sciences had different rules, after all. Even more so true for magic.

“Well, that depends on _who_ you think we’re dating,” Other Coco replied.

Nina didn’t rise to it. She could see the two of them, even with her eyes closed in quiet frustration. She could _see_ the pair of them smirking at her, just daring her to continue with her little line of thinking because–

Because Nina always got a kick out of being right, and everyone seemed intent on proving her wrong at every given chance. The idea that Coco Bandicoot felt the same way was not entirely unusual. Even if it implied there were traits that they shared in common… which only worsened the inflated awkwardness in Nina’s gut.

“Each other,” Nina stated. Painfully. “Are you dating each other?”

The moment hung for longer than Nina would have liked. And seeing this Other Nina and this Other Coco eyeing each other in conspiratorial glee only told her that the moment was only carrying on as long as it was because they chose to do so.

“Yeah… no,” Other Coco eventually said. “We’re not dating.”

Other Nina scoffed at the mere thought. “She’s married, genius.”

Sure enough, Other Coco was quick to present her hand, and the gold band attached to the ring finger. It was a thin thing, barely noticeable beneath her fur and studded with a small number of clean-cut purple crystals.

Yet, Nina eyed it worriedly. “You?” she asked, not quite sure where her emotions were taking her. Shock. Confusion? “You’re married?”

Constipation? Nina certainly felt emotionally constipated. And intellectually challenged.

“Yup! Two years.”

 _“_ To _who_?”

Other Nina chose that moment to unfasten the topmost button of her lab coat and pull at a thin metal chain.

Another ring was at the end. This one black, studded with rubies.

“To me, bitch!”

The band swung gently back and forth, steady in Other Nina’s hydraulic hands as she struggled to hold the rest of her body straight. She broke down into hysterics, Other Coco gripping tight at her shoulder in an effort to stay upright as she ugly-laughed with her.

Nina could feel her face pale; an achievement, given her freshly-embalmed-white-girl complexion. And it was apparently obvious, as Other Nina only doubled down in laughter.

Other Nina replaced the ring to her clavicle. “You should see your face.”

Other Coco wheezed. _“Oh my God.”_

Nina wasn’t sure she wanted to see her face, if that was the case.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to actually know what emotions her body was readily trying to display. She didn’t want to know what she was thinking.

She certainly couldn’t decipher that information for herself.

“You’re… married?”

Other Coco offered a fist to Other Nina. A second of understanding passed before they bumped fists, whispering, “Science wives,” in conspirator unison.

“FTW,” Coco added.

Nina eyed her other self. “ _You_ married _her?_ ”

“Only after years of her begging me.”

Other Coco cleared her throat. “Nina.”

Other Nina cleared her throat. “Our marriage saved the known universe.”

_What…? How–_

“Real answer time, Nina.”

“I proposed. She said yes.”

She… Nina had proposed to–

What?

“B-but that doesn’t make any sense.” Nina had a handle on this. “You have to be _seeing_ each other before you get married.”

“Oh, yeah,” Other Nina agreed. “Definitely.”

“We did that part,” Other Coco added.

That somehow made less sense to Nina than the marriage part. Married… yeah. That was an end state. It was a big enough gap in any given timeline for _events_ and _flags_ to pop up where they were required. You could fit a whole boxset with special episodes and shorts between whatever the hell it was that Other Nina and Other Coco had before something as striking as _marriage_ came up.

But how did they get to engaged? Or start seeing each other. Or anything even close to that? The line blurred somewhere down the spectrum, and it was that blur that made Nina uncomfortable.

The blur implied change, no matter how gradual.

Unless… there was no change?

Nina understood. “Because you were always close, right?,” she said, Begged. “You’ve been best-friends-goody-two-shoes-gal-pals since you were born in this universe, right?”

It was hope.

Hope that this universe was just a shittier version of the own universe. It would explain everything. _Everything._

“Oh, hard no on that,” Other Coco replied, shooting the argument down. “We tried to kill each other all the time.”

“The jump from hate to love is pretty small, if I’m being honest,” Other Nina added. “You just swap a few things out for some other things and you’re basically you’re basically already married at that point anyway.”

Other Coco motioned to her wife, and it only brought her words from earlier back to the forefront of Nina’s mind.

_So, she does mean something?_

… Did Coco mean something?

Nina took a slow step back, then another. One more, and her back hit the wall, until her backside slid down and hit gently on the floor. Her eyes were wide and scared, her hands clamped up in neutral fists, ready for battle.

Whatever that battle turned out to be.


	4. Chapter 4

Amazing. Glorious.

Intuitive.

_Ingenious._

Nina… did not feel like those things as she stared solemnly into her mug of freshly squeezed orange juice. The pulp drifted over the surface, occasionally clinging to the metal sides as they begged for Nina to save them from their miserable existence of swimming aimlessly in their own blood.

She liked orange juice. What was more evil than drinking the remains of something you’d forced cruelly through device designed to wring it dry?

Nothing, that’s what.

Usually, Nina would say there wasn’t an eviler drink than orange juice.

Said reasoning felt particular flimsy when it was served to you by someone that claimed to be your wife. Even more so when that wife was handed it by someone who claimed to be someone just like you. And insisted on kissing her when it was done.

Nina didn’t care about alternative timelines of dimensions anymore. There was too much going on and her jar of fucks was quickly growing on empty.

Nina focused her attention on the rest of the kitchen instead.

It wasn’t entirely alien; the geometries were similar enough to her own home that she readily recognised the layout. She recognised the floorplan of the kitchen itself, the long counters and open area on either side.

She did not recognise the furniture. She didn’t recognise the couch she was sitting on, nor the utilities that lined the kitchen walls. Two ovens, a separate cooking station with hobs and a fridge with two doors. All of it black, all it tastefully lined with marble countertops and smooth surfaces.

Even the sink felt elegant in its design.

None of it as brutally utilitarian as Nina’s kitchen. Her kitchen was fit for a purpose, but this one had been designed with the very idea of design in mind. It had an artistic streak layered neatly beneath the surface. Enough to let Nina know that more than her own opinion had gone into choosing the style itself.

Even the couch was new, yet old. The style was once again unrecognisable, but it was well-used. A thick fabric suite of two couches and one armchair – black, thankfully – and orbiting a coffee table with multiple stains engrained on the surface.

And there Nina sat, holding her orange juice and deciding that it would be very unfortunate if she just so happened to crush her mug into a sad clump of metal, right on such a _lovely_ couch. She was tempted to try when–

“Glad you’re staying for lunch,” Other Coco said. She fell back into the second couch. “Means we get pancakes.”

“… Pancakes?”

Nina liked pancakes. She didn’t know Coco did. Or if _her_ Coco did, at any rate.

“Oh, yeah. Nina makes the best pancakes. Period.”

 _Finally,_ a flaw. “I don’t _make_ pancakes.”

There was a sudden sizzle, and the air was thicker then, warm with the smell of batter frying in fresh oil. Other Nina stood at set of hobs with a frying pan, hands busy with shakers and loose ingredients. There was a bar of chocolate in there, somewhere. Lost in the mess of mixed berries, sprinkles and cheap ice cream.

And despite having her back turned, Nina could tell with each minor bounce of her step that the woman was smiling. Like she was just waiting for the chance to jump around and dance away the excess energy.

It made Nina feel… things.

“You don’t make pancakes _yet,_ ” Other Coco corrected. “Nina hated cooking when we first started going out. She didn’t like being ‘ _domestic_ ’.”

“Because I _don’t_ like domestic.”

It was just so sickly stereotypical. Nina was not a lady.

Nina was an evil scientist, and evil scientists did not spend their time in the kitchen, baking _pies_ or cooking spaghetti or…

Or whatever else it was that ladies did in the kitchen.

“Because you think it’s stupid.”

“It _is_ stupid.”

Other Coco leaned further back into the couch, her neck craning back. “Nina, sweetie. How are the pancakes doing?”

“Thick and fluffy!”

Despite the deeper tone to Other Nina’s voice, the feeling of those words from her own mouth rattling around inside Nina’s head was an unpleasant one.

“Thick. And fluffy,” Other Coco repeated. “Sounds like we’re going to get some _pretty_ good pancakes.”

No comment. “Yeah, so?”

“She used to think cooking was stupid, too. But she seems pretty into it, don’t you think?”

Nina did think that, and she was trying very much not to consider the implications. “It’s still stupid. Why do it herself when she can make a robot do it for her.” That’s how Nina got her pancake fix.

“Sometimes it’s just nice to do something yourself.”

Nonsense.

Nina didn’t have time to cook. Or clean or do any of the other mundane things that people busied their miserable little lives with.

“Or, you know…” Other Coco continued, “Doing something nice _for_ yourself.” She had the cheek to snicker at her own wordplay.

“I’m not her.”

“You’re pretty close.”

“Still not her.”

“I bet she gets your pancakes just how you like them.”

Nina had likely lost this argument from the moment she’d even hinted to Other Coco that she liked pancakes, but it still scratched at the base of her brain that this Coco was still right.

There was every chance that, under the surface, Nina shared absolutely nothing in common with this other version of herself. Other Nina could have been a lizard in a skin suit, for all first impressions in other universes were worse. She could have been vastly different interpretation of her character, her sense of self.

But she wasn’t, and Nina was faced with even more data to suggest that there was very little standing between them at all.

In so many ways, that scared her.

“That just means she used to be _someone_ like me,” Nina said, changing tact. “It does not mean that I end up like her.”

Changing the goalpost was as old a tactic as evil itself, and it worked well… for the most part. It worked best when you were conning some poor sap out of their life savings or gaining interest on something that had never really been defined.

Nina supposed it didn’t work quite as well when arguing about who you were. Are.

Will be?

“No, maybe not,” Other Coco conceded. Then she sat forward, elbows on her knees as her voice suddenly gentler. “But that does mean you’re someone just like the girl that asked me if I wanted to spend more time with her.”

Shit. “Don’t logic bomb me,” Nina scoffed.

“I’m not– Nina, I’m not trying to do anything.” She sighed. “I don’t know if you’ll turn out like _my_ Nina. But my Nina used to be someone exactly like you.”

Because everything Nina had said, seen and claimed backed that up. Other Nina had been someone like her at some point. That put Nina at a disadvantage. Everyone else in the room knew what they were dealing with. Even worse, they’d moved right past it into whatever it was that they had now.

“Nina knows you like pancakes because she _was_ you. But, she’s _making_ you pancakes because you seem pretty out of it.”

“What do you expect? One universe to the left and I’m married to Coco Bandicoot. Coco Bandicoot kicked me in the face not even an hour ago.”

“But that’s not the thing upsetting you, is it?”

“… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Are you sure about that?”

_“Very.”_

“Because I dated you for a _pretty_ long time and–”

“You haven’t dated me _at all_ –”

“–it’s kinda easy for me to work out when you’re lying. Especially when you’re a Nina that hasn’t learned to hide it from me, yet.”

“I’m– I’m _not_ hiding _–_ ” She wasn’t lying. Why couldn’t Coco – why couldn’t _every_ Coco Bandicoot just mind their own damned business?

Nina just wanted to leave.

She wanted to leave all this stupid talk and go home, back where things were the way that they were meant to be. No marriage or _girlfriends_ or–

“We both know you could have left, by now,” Other Coco says. “The little light on your bracelet turned green ten minutes ago.”

But then she couldn’t just leave, could she?

Just think of all the information she would just be leaving behind. This universe was, at face value, entirely coherent with established history. Nina cold ask her other self so many things about the near future, if only to hold onto a few snippets of information that happened to occur in the same sequence of events.

And she had no qualms about taking data from her own future. It wasn’t _her_ future. It was just a future very close to her own. What would it matter if she stole a few blueprints here or there? Or a device that couldn’t be traced back to her own universe if she stole it. She could gain years’ worth of progress in hours. Minutes!

And then she’d have to make sure she left nothing behind, right? Nothing they could reverse engineer, or trace back to her.

And she had to work out where they went wrong. Work out how they managed to do the most utterly reprehensible thing and end up… end up together.

How else was she going to avoid the same thing happening to herself?

A plate was placed on her lap and Nina realised that, yes, there was now indeed some pancakes sat in front of her. She glanced up to Other Nina, catching the smirk on the woman’s lips.

“Yeah, you could have definitely left by now.”

Then she sat herself down beside her wife. Despite the wideness of the couch, they sat close, their hips touching.

Other Nina passed a second plate to her wife, picking up her own from the coffee table. Nina wasn’t sure when it had been placed there, but she supposed it didn’t matter.

“And you’re sat at a table with yourself and her wife,” Other Nina continued. She sliced her fork into her pancakes, dragging it through thick vanilla ice cream before dumping it in her mouth. “We’re literally the best people to talk to about your love life right now.”

Nina… blushed.

She couldn’t stop it. She felt the pinpricks of heats burn at her cheeks and despite every moment in her life leading up to the thought that she shouldn’t let anything so private as her emotions out into the world, that felt hollow when she was talking to herself.

Or someone she might one day become, at any rate.

Even with a Coco Bandicoot sat across from her (across from _and_ next to her, in some fashion), the simple fact was that Other Nina was being logical.

There _was_ an issue.

Nina _was_ in the perfect place to ask about it, with little to no repercussions to anything related to her own universe.

The only thing that posed any possible threat was _her_ Coco Bandicoot, and she was asleep in a bed, down the hall and three doors to the left.

“I don’t have a love life,” Nina eventually muttered.

“But… you’d like one?” Other Coco asked.

Not a question Nina wanted to be asked regardless of the situation. But… “I don’t know.”

“With your Coco?”

“I don’t know!” She hadn’t even touched her pancakes yet. “It’s fucking weird.”

“It’s so fucking weird,” Other Nina agreed. Other Coco almost laughed as she took her first mouthful of pancakes and strawberries. Her plate looked entirely different to Nina, or Other Nina’s. “But not _bad_ weird, you know? Just new and freaky.”

Freaky was certainly one word that Nina wanted to use. She stared at her plate, watching as the ice cream melted against the warmth of the pancake. Streams pulled away from the three scoops, setting a precedent; it would melt completely soon. Ruin the moment.

“It wasn’t _anything_ until I got here.”

“But now you have been here,” Other Coco said, mouth frustratingly full of pancake. She swallowed. “What’s that got you thinking?”

“That I’m an idiot in this universe.”

Other Coco smiled. “That isn’t worth much when you’re sat there wondering what it would be like to be the idiot.”

“I’m not _wondering_.”

“You’re still here,” she replied. “It’s the same thing.”

And…

And that was true. She could have left.

But then that would mean leaving whatever this place had to tell her. It would mean leaving Coco Bandicoot in a random bed, in a random universe. Would she ever get back to her own universe, on her own?

Definitely. Undoubtedly, given the lab she was sleeping in.

But that felt like a loss, especially when Nina considered what their interactions would be like in the aftermath.

They would sting, after everything she’d seen here, at any rate.

Was this how things were meant to be? Eating pancakes with Coco Bandicoot?

It seemed pleasant enough. They seemed _happy_ enough.

Was she meant to be doing the same thing with her Coco? Did she even want to?

What did that mean for everything if she did?

“What am I meant to do, then?” Why not just ask? “Ignore all of this?”

“What happened to me _not_ being you?”

As much as it pained Nina to admit as much out loud, “I’m a scientist. I don’t ignore evidence when it’s right in front of me.”

Other Coco leaned forward. “Evidence of?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it…?

Lying came naturally to Nina; she’d practised it after class for years, just to be on the safe side. It was one of her better attributes, if she was being honest.

It would have been nice if that didn’t also mean lying to herself.

“Evidence…” Nina tried. Why was this hard to say? To herself, or her _other_ self. “E-evidence _of_ –”

“Of you and your Coco being like us?” Other Coco offered.

“… Sure. Let’s go with that.”

It was a good enough approximation of what Nina wanted to say. And if it meant she didn’t have to say it aloud herself, she was all the more grateful for it.

“Was I actually this shy about this sort of thing?” Other Nina asked.

“You’re still this shy,” Other Coco replied, wistfully.

“But you love me for it.”

Alternate self or not, Nina still found the whole thing too sickly-sweet. Like watching a sitcom that she was very much not the primary audience for.

Other Coco squeezed her wife’s forearm, in the same way that others might squeeze a hand. It was a warm gesture. “Always.”

Nina wasn’t _quite_ going to vomit, but the temptation was there to try and force it, just to make a point. Instead, she said, “Look, just tell me what you guys did, and I can experiment with all this junk on my own.” Working off previous experimentation was always a boon.

Why not steal that for herself, too?

“Uh, how about no?” Other Coco said. “You’re not getting your Coco by copying us. That’s super lazy.”

Other Nina continued to eat her pancakes between words. “Yeah. You’re never going to get laid if you do the bare minimum.

Nina didn’t care; that was _not_ something she was discussing with two people she had never met. She didn’t even know how old they were–

It wasn’t their business.

“I’m not trying to get laid by Coco Bandicoot, I just want to experiment with–” Not her best word choice, and she knew it. Time to change tactic. “I don’t know what this is. I just want to know what you guys did, so I can see if it’s something that…” Something… what?

Nina clenched the muscles in the forearm. Her hand stayed still, but the tension relaxed it. Like she remembered cracking her knuckles did when she was too young to appreciate it. “I want to see if what you have is something that is worth pursuing. Because…” Because. “Because you both seem…”

The next word hurt. It tasted like old vinegar on her tongue. “You both seem _happy,_ ” she hissed, through gritted teeth.

Amazing. Glorious.

Intuitive.

_Ingenious._

All of those words held one simple, uniting factor; they described Nina Cortex perfectly.

But happy?

Happiness was a vaguer thing to nail down. She often felt accomplished. She very often felt the thrill of doing something she shouldn’t and doing it _better_ than everyone else who was trying to accomplish the same thing.

She was prideful. A sin to some, but she revelled in it. In what she could do, and what she had accomplished over her life.

She felt lots of things that led to a variety of objectively positive emotions.

She often felt lots of them in quick succession. Pure, unadulterated happiness, though?

That was a stranger to her. Or someone she passed by on occasion, only vaguely recognising them before they lost sight of each other once again.

She wasn’t _friends_ with happiness. That was the point.

This Other Nina seemed to married to them.

Or her.

“We are happy,” Other Nina answered back, without even thinking. Her forearm pulled away from other Coco until their fingers linked together.

Other Nina wouldn’t feel it, but Other Coco would. Nina supposed that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Doing it for someone else, just because you could. Ugh.

How disgustingly _nice_.

“Seconded,” Other Coco sang. “Science wives!”

Nina didn’t care about the ‘science wives’ part. Not right now.

But the rest of it… that seemed vaguely interesting. If only just to see where it could lead. She said as much.

“Then follow up on your line of enquiry,” Other Nina offered.

“It’s fine just saying that,” Nina replied. “Lines don’t always lead to a desired outcome.”

“And what is the desired outcome?”

“How should I know?”

“Then what’s the _undesired outcome_?” Other Coco asked.

“Uh, I could lose my archnemesis? Duh.”

“Sweetie, if your major worry about upgrading your relationship with someone is that you’re going to lose the current relationship, then they’re not really your archnemesis. They’re not even your enemy.”

… Oh.

 _Oh._ That–

Why hadn’t she seen that?

_Why hadn’t Nina seen that?_

It meant something to Nina that she had her archnemesis. She _had_ someone that she went up against, someone that actually put up some sort of a fight and actually meant it.

Coco Bandicoot posed a challenge to be overcome, even if she ruined the fuck out of almost everything that Nina ever did.

She’d even ruined a simple dimensional jump.

And yet calling having Coco as that archnemesis meant something, too. It meant there was a pride in her presence, for as little as that was worth. It meant there was a defined relationship. It meant Nina had expectations, and a desire to impress. To be impressive.

It meant Nina didn’t want to lose that relationship.

“Oh my God…” Nina shakily breathed.

“There we go,” Other Nina said. “Penny, dropped. Been there, done that.”

“Got the t-shirt?” Other Coco asked.

“Only after sleeping over at yours.”

Nina wished she hadn’t heard that, but the hazy look in Other Coco’s eyes only proved that she had. Other Coco bit at her bottom lip, only briefly. Only enough to prove that something memorable was flickering through the back of her mind.

Or some fantasy she hoped to recreate. “It’s been a while since that last happened.”

“Three years.”

“You did look very cute in my old clothes.” Or the former.

“Just cute?”

“Sexy?”

Definitely the former.

“I’ll take sexy.”

Nina wasn’t taking sexy. She wasn’t sure what she was taking, now.

She just knew there were new thoughts inside her head, and new avenues that she needed to explore in order to get them organised.

However she was going to go about doing that.

“Your pancakes are getting cold, Nina,” Other Coco said.

Which was true; Nina still hadn’t touched them, despite how much she still needed those pancakes inside her. The warmth was gone, as was the smell that came with it. But the memory of it remained, and what was left of the ice cream surrounded the pancakes in something sweet that she knew she would enjoy, if only she started.

The pancakes were getting cold.

So, Nina took her first bite.


	5. Chapter 5

Nina heard Coco breaking something before anyone was ever notified that she was awake.

Despite all the progress Other Nina had seemingly made in the time difference, bandicoots were still a problem for her. Typical.

Naturally, Other Coco offered herself up as the one to deal with the issue. Arriving in another universe was fine, but if Nina had been annoyed enough to see herself, she doubted Coco would be all that pleased about seeing something that looked like Nina Cortex, but _better._

Or older. Better was a relative term, after all.

“It was _not_ pretty stupid,” she heard Coco whine. She walked in alongside Other Coco. “She could have been doing anything.”

“So… you decided to grab onto her and deal with the consequences afterwards.”

Even Coco didn’t seem to be immune to Coco. Interesting. “Yes! I mean, wait. No, that’s not–”

“Think before you act. Believe me; the sooner you make that a habit, the better.”

That brought them all together; Other Coco stood across from her wife, and Nina Nina archnemesis. Or whatever she really was.

Thoughts for later.

Nina caught Coco’s immediate attention, and her eyes immediately narrowed. Given all the talk of marriage and romance, it should have hurt to feel that suspicion, but it felt so natural to Nina. So _normal._

Maybe that would change in the future, but she enjoyed the attention. From… the person she cared about?

Cared about their opinion of her? So long as it was a suitably evil opinion, of course.

Again… change.

“Other Me vouches for you for this time, but I’m keeping my eye on you.”

“It’s fine,” Other Nina laughed. “She vouches for me a lot.”

“And I’m not too hot about you either, Other Cortex.”

 _“Not yet,”_ Other Coco mouthed silently, flashing Nina the tiniest wink.

Other Coco joined her wife, crossing her arms as she faced Coco and Nina. “This was nice. Wasn’t this nice?” she asked.

“It was okay,” Other Nina replied. “Eight of ten.”

“Three out of four,” Other Coco replied in apparent agreement. “Would be nice if everyone had pancakes next time.”

“… Pancakes?” Coco asked, glancing dubiously at Nina.

“Pretty sure there’ll be three next time too,” Other Nina said. Her attention fell back on her other self. “Go home. Stop being idiots. Give warning before your visit yourselves in future. We were meant to be productive today.”

“You ruined the mood,” Other Coco agreed.

Which felt very much like a thing Nina would say. It was hard to get back into the working spirit when the flow was ruined.

Other Nina seemed almost domesticated, but Other Coco wasn’t much better. They had influenced each other. There was a little Cortex in her methodology.

Even if it had been there before their marriage, it felt linked, now, with the evidence laid out in front of her.

“Don’t say we ruined the mood,” Coco sighed. Her nose cringed at the thought, and Nina’s immediate reaction was that the look was not… unpleasant, on Coco. “Seeing you guys together is weird enough.”

Coco had been given the short version of the story, it seemed. Maybe that would be helpful in the future too.

Then other Nina squealed, leaning forward slightly as Other Coco’s hand came away from her backside. “The mood is back,” she proclaimed.

“Honey, _dearest_ ,” sighed, dramatically. “Not in front of the kids.”

Coco breathed deep through her nose before raising both hands in the air. “Nope. No. Uh-huh.” Before grabbing tightly at Nina’s forearm. “I don’t care if it kills me. Take us home or I’m killing you, then myself.”

“A bit counterproductive–” Nina began.

“Bangle. On. _Now_.”

Nina simply shrugged. “Sure.” She looked at her other self, leaning closer to her Coco… whispering something evidentially dirty into her ear.

Nina couldn’t hear the words, but the result on Other Coco’s face made Nina squirm. It was self-indulgent and heated as they stared into each other’s’ eyes.

“Okay, yeah. I’m with you now,” Nina agreed.

She gripped at the buttons on her wrist. It had two settings, essentially.

Setting one: to a new place.

Setting two: back to the first place.

Inputting custom co-ordinates would only add issues, and a first test with Nina herself needed as few variables as possible.

On that note, with the extra time stood next to each other on start-up, Coco probably wouldn’t arrive unconscious this time. Probably.

At the very least, Nina would be fine and that was all that mattered.

For now, at least.

She didn’t need to – she didn’t really want to – but she raised a hand as the bangle activated. If Other Coco and Nina looked hard enough, it might almost look like she was waving goodbye.

But then they were gone, and it didn’t matter anyway. The couple weren’t her problem anymore.

Not yet.


	6. Chapter 6

Nina watched her younger self vanish in an inconsequential burst of light. It wasn’t flashy, nor anything dramatic. They were there one second and gone the next.

She did recognise the magic, though. She’d seen enough displays first-hand to know what time magic looked like.

And she’d had a hunch. A few, over the years, but this hunch seemed to be the winner.

“Kapuna-Wa?” she asked the open air. “Pretty sure that was you.”

“Ninety-five percent sure,” Coco added.

There was no real answer, for a moment. The room stayed quiet, the smell of the cooked pancakes still lingering in the air near the kitchen counter.

Then there was a voice from behind.

“Aren’t they cute together?”

The bangle had been a dud. More or less, Nina had found.

She’d never got it to work again after the first jump. Further tests suggested she was lucky to get anywhere close to the baseline universe at all, let alone somewhere directly linked to their own reality.

She’d assumed she’d been lucky, especially given what the day led to.

But then she remembered than Nina Cortex did not get lucky, and she’d opened other lines of enquiry.

“You do know you could have told us, right,” Nina asked the old mask. “You came to the wedding.”

“I went to the wedding four times,” she replied, like a witch to her familiar. “You didn’t even notice! And Coco told me she liked surprises.”

“I didn’t mean don’t tell us about the future. I just meant, you know, stop telling us everything.”

“Ah, but you never _were_ told about today, so you could not _be_ told..” She floated aimlessly between Nina and Coco, bobbing in the air before finally turning to face them. “Wasn’t it a nice surprise? Lani says I need to practise with surprises.”

Not a complete surprise, granted.

Again, hunches. Nina and Coco were good with hunches.

_Science wives._

But then, maybe Kapuna-Wa wasn’t talking about them. You never could quite tell, when talking to her. Especially when different time periods, or even different selves were involved. So Nina thought back to the day she’d arrived in the ‘Other Universe’, and the time she saw another Coco squeeze her ass.

She remembered thinking on how things might be different, one day.

She remembered feeling immensely uncomfortable. But…

“It was,” she said, bumping her hip against Coco’s.

Coco smiled back. “It was a nice surprise.”


End file.
